Classic Poem

'Tis Eve, the soft, the poet's hour,
The dew is glistening on the bower;
The bird is couching in its nest.
The cloud is burning in the West.
Heavy with sleep, the leaflets close,
Around thy bloom, enchanting rose,
Still gazing on the golden ray,
The last sweet worshipper of day.

A cloud descends, a meteor plume
Shoots downward through the twilight gloom.
Oh! who, at this soul-softening hour,
So wildly rushes through the bower,
Now winging fount, now grot, now grove?
'Tis Zephyr led by viewless Love.
One spot there is, a myrtle dell;
The stream makes music in its cell
And the woodbine branch above,
Coos to its mate a snowy dove.
No more the Spirit's azure gaze
On earth, on heaven, upbraiding, strays:
Charm'd to the spot, his brightening eyes
See odours from the ground arise.
They spread, float, fade, on upper air;
A simple rose-tree blushes there;
It bends, it breathes, new blossoms swell
On that strange tree of miracle.
Till in its central, opening shade
He sees a form of beauty laid.

But, oh! upon that young cheek glows
No crimson of its parent rose;
Heavy and faint her head is hung,
Her locks upon the wind are flung,
Her eye is closed, eternal sleep
Relentless seems her brow to steep.
He clasps her to his heart, she wakes,
On lip and cheek the crimson breaks;
He smiles, — in waving light the robe
Floats on her bosom's ivory globe!
No words are whisper'd there, no sigh;
What emblem like a lover's eye?
All told at once: in mystic dance,
Their footsteps o'er the verdure glance.
Now, wreathing close, the ringlets flow
From neck to neck of living snow;
Now, shot asunder, bright and far,
Swift as the arrows of a star,
They cull the rose, or press the wine
From thy rich cluster, melting vine.

A chorus echoes; sudden stoop
From cloud and car a glittering troop,
In warrior pomp, in beauty's bloom,
To join the lovely revel come.
There diadems of Paradise
Flash over beauty's brighter eyes,
And wing'd and regal spirits wield
The spear of flame and moon-orb'd shield.
But soon the lance is thrown aside
The helm of chrysolite untied;
Earth, air are hush'd; the heavenward eye,
The shape, alone are harmony;
All waiting till the sign is given
For that ecstatic dance from heaven.
It comes; in volumed richness round,
Rolls the descending pomp of sound.
Away they sweep; no mortal ear,
The treadings of those feet might hear!
Not snow before the whirlwind driven,
Not colours of the summer even,
Not streamers of the column'd light,
That reddens on the northern night,
Not visions of the lover's sleep,
So swift, so light, so lovely sweep.

Then melting, like the sunset beam
Along the rippling summer stream,
Still bright, though all dissolved the rays;
In parted groups the dance decays;
The music dies, as twilight's wave
Subsiding in its marble cave.
Beside her lord, on sudden wings,
The blushing bride, the Rose-nymph springs;
The troop ascend; slow wheeling o'er
The spot their pinions fann'd before;
Till fade upon the mortal ear
The warblings of their native sphere.